


Light the Way and I'll Follow Where You Go

by mousedeer



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Actually 4 AUs in 1, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief Descriptions of Character Death, Cameos from Rey Finn and Poe, Established Relationship, M/M, Oneshot, Pining, but it's okay because this is a reincarnation au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6642655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousedeer/pseuds/mousedeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ben didn’t know why it was only him who retained those memories of a life lived a long, long time ago. In all his twenty-odd years, he had given the thing much thought, but the only conclusion he could come to was that the universe was sadistic and enjoyed watching him suffer. After all, it had given him the name ‘Ben’ again."</p>
<p>Over the course of thousands of years, they continue to meet again and again. Hux never remembers. Kylo always does.</p>
<p>A Kylux Reincarnation AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light the Way and I'll Follow Where You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this took me way too long to write because I kept getting sidetracked when doing research, but it's finally finished and I hope you enjoy reading it!

**Rome, 170 AD**

Deep within the walls of the Roman Colosseum, two figures, both armed with swords, danced across the rough sand. It was pitch dark, the waning moon doing little to illuminate their surroundings, but not once did the discordant screech of their clashing blades ever cease.

The shorter of them was called Felix, although that was not his birth name. He had chosen the new name himself when he had first arrived over a year ago, because he believed that having a local name would greatly boost his popularity amongst the populace. And it did – the crowds loved him for his nimble moves and practiced skill with the _gladius_.

The taller one was different – unlike Felix, he was a criminal, a common thief, sentenced to fight until his dying day. Yet while he found little pleasure in this unfortunate fate, no one could deny his almost otherworldly proficiency with the blade. He had won every one of his matches so far, and the people had already given him a nickname – Valerius, the Valiant.

His popularity was not, however, universal. Valerius’s violent temper was infamous in his _familia_ , and he was wont to take it out on hapless new recruits who did not know any better. Even when he was training, he fought with such sheer ferocity that no one else except Felix was willing to be his sparring partner. That was why the pair of them were currently alone and trading blows, while everyone else was deep asleep in the barracks.

“Do you think you’re ready then?” Felix asked suddenly, lunging forward. The question caught Valerius off-guard, and he growled and quickened his pace.

“Ready for what?”

“For tomorrow, of course. The Emperor himself is coming to watch.”

Valerius scowled as he deflected a blow.

“I care not for the Emperor. I don’t even remember his name.”

There were many rumours whispered about the enigmatic young man who had only recently ascended the throne. He ruled harshly but fairly, yet unlike his more showy predecessors, he mostly preferred to keep to himself inside the walls of his grand palace, venturing out only when strictly necessary. Barely anyone except his servants and his closest aides had ever seen his face – the fact that he would finally be making an appearance at the Games had sent the entire country into an excited frenzy, and the _lanista_ was expecting to entertain a huge crowd.

“Aren’t you at least a little bit nervous?”

“Not at all.”

Valerius surged quickly forward, his sword raised high to deliver the final blow, and Felix was forced to twist out of the way to keep his head from getting chopped off. His sword was knocked out of his hand, clattering far away onto the dust. He gave it a brief, sad glance, then held up his hands in surrender as Valerius towered over him.

“Fine,” he huffed in irritation. “You evidently have nothing to worry about.”

Valerius gave a small chuckle at that, causing Felix to secretly consider the match his win – Valerius rarely ever did anything but frown and shout and terrorise the other recruits. He got up to retrieve his fallen sword, while Valerius continued to slice at the air with his own blade.

“You should turn in soon,” Felix commented, sheathing his sword into the _balteus_ slung over his shoulder. “You need to be fully rested for tomorrow.”

“I know,” came the curt reply. “You can go now, if you wish. I think I’ll stay a little longer.”

Felix was just about to open his mouth and argue back, but stopped himself from doing so just in time. Valerius’s pride and stubbornness could rival that of the gods themselves – once he decided on something, there was nothing anyone could do to stop him. So instead of forcing the matter, he simply gave him a nod in farewell and retreated back to his quarters to wash up and sleep. Valerius watched him go in silence.

The truth was that Valerius, despite all his strength and bravado, was afraid of going to sleep. It was a senseless fear, and he knew that, but more often than not his dreams caused him to wake up in a cold sweat. It was not some strange new trick or curse either – he had been having these dreams ever since he was a child – but that didn’t make them any less terrifying to him.

_In his dreams, the world was a stark black and red and white, a far cry from the warm brown hues of the Colosseum. And it was cold too, deathly cold – it seeped into his clothes and under his skin, turning his blood to ice. His robes were dark and heavy, and the agonising pain at his side where there was an open wound felt far too real. Someone was lying on a mound of snow, unmoving, while another person knelt over them and babbled in frantic concern._

It was always the same dream, the same scenario, and Valerius would always feel the same hard lump of guilt and anger rise in his throat whenever he looked at those two small figures. In the past, before he had been thrown into the Colosseum, he would always wake up just before the second person turned around to face him. Yet ever since he had entered the Colosseum half a year ago, the dreams had grown more frequent, more intense.

_Now there were shouts and screams, and Valerius found himself wielding a curious sword, one that seemed to burn with a merciless flame. The other figure carried a similar weapon, although his was bright blue in colour, and they fought each other across a chill, hostile landscape that seemed at once alien, yet oddly familiar. Valerius won the battle every time, his sword raking across the other man’s back in a smooth, clean arc._

_What scared him the most, however, was that this other figure wore Felix’s face._

Even if it was only in a dream, and even if they sparred together practically every day, it still felt immensely surreal to beat the only friend he had in the _familia_ to within an inch of his life. Whenever the sight of him bleeding out in the snow proved too much for him to handle, Valerius would jolt awake and immediately search for Felix’s distinct sleeping form somewhere next to him. The steady rise and fall of the other man’s chest assured him that he was still alive, still breathing, and only then would his wildly beating heart calm down.

In the end, after practising his drills and his sets for another half hour, fatigue finally won out and Valerius reluctantly dragged himself back inside, careful not to wake the others who shared his room. Felix was lying in his usual spot, faintly illuminated by the thin slivers of moonlight that poured through the window. The long, thin scar running down his back was in full view. When Valerius had first asked him about it, he had claimed that it was just a simple birthmark and laughed it off. Yet it was the same size and shape as the one inflicted on him by Valerius’s dream self, and he felt a rush of shame every time he saw it.

With a sigh, Valerius laid himself down and tried to get to sleep. It was better to simply get the damn thing over and done with.

_This time, his dream was different. It was now him who was lying in the snow, bruised and bloodied and broken. Every part of his body silently screamed with pain. He searched around for the usual two figures he saw, but they were nowhere to be found. He was all alone. After a while, however, footsteps sounded behind him, and a new man stepped into view. He was wrapped in a dark cloak that seemed far too big for him, and he regarded Valerius with a scornful frown._

_“How pathetic,” he pronounced coldly._

Then everything blurred and turned to black, and Valerius awoke to the sun in his eyes.

* * *

The _lanista_ had been right about the crowd – the entire Colosseum was packed with people from all walks of life, from the lowliest slaves to the highest-ranking Senators, but Valerius knew that they were all far more interested in watching the Emperor himself than they were in the matches. From his place behind the Gate of Life, Valerius watched as a small entourage emerged from the northern main entrance and seated themselves in the empty box that occupied one of the far ends of the Colosseum. A hush fell across the crowd, and Valerius guessed that the Emperor had taken his place. Still, as much as Valerius craned his neck throughout the opening procession and even as he obediently saluted him, the Emperor’s face remained hidden, obscured by his decidedly taller aides as he turned to speak to them. Valerius scoffed. The Emperor was surprisingly short.

Time passed excruciatingly slowly as he waited to go out and fight after that. The _praegenarii_ took forever to finish, as did the chariot-fighters that followed. Valerius was a _murmillo_ , armed with a sword and a heavy shield, and his match was scheduled for later in the day. Still, he was unable to keep still, bouncing on the balls of his feet and swinging his blade around dangerously. Although he had assured Felix that he wasn’t the slightest bit nervous, his heart was still hammering loudly within his chest. Something told him that his fight today would be important, almost life-changing. That same something refused to tell him whether it would be for the better, or for the worse.

At last the _munerarius_ , the giver of the Games, announced his name, and Valerius emerged into the sunshine to the enthusiastic roar of the crowd. They chanted his name and he let the noise wash over him, willing it to ease away the tinge of worry creeping into his heart. His opponent, a Thracian armed with a curved _sica_ , stepped out as well, and he started to relax. He had done this before. He could do this again.

Then he glanced up and caught the eye of the Emperor, and his whole world fell apart.

He knew those eyes, recognised them in a heartbeat. He had seen them the night before, glaring down at him as he lay half-buried in the snow. And he had seen them many other times as well, in different places, crinkling into a multitude of other expressions known only to him.  

The _munerarius_ signalled the start of the match and the Thracian swung. Valerius rolled out of the way only just in time. His hands were trembling, and he tightened his grip on his sword, desperate to have something to cling on to.

_In another time, another life, he had clung onto pale shoulders spotted with freckles, had grounded himself by burying his face deep into that single blessed crook of his lover’s neck and breathing in his rich, clean scent. He had dug his nails sharply into the other’s man’s back and gasped out his name. He had looked up to see green eyes glazed over in happiness and pleasure, and he had drowned in those eyes._

Valerius tried to recall the many techniques taught to him by the _lanista_ , all the fights he had ever been in. But his mind had suddenly gone blank, and the world around him seemed to fade away, becoming no more than a distant, hazy dream. He thrusted his sword at the Thracian, but it missed the mark, travelling as it pleased in some other direction. He frowned and concentrated his mind on the errant blade, willing it to obey him, then wondered what on earth he was doing when it refused to do so.

_The first time the Force refused to cooperate with him, he had sat himself far away from the rest of his uncle’s apprentices and sulked. His uncle had found him an hour later, close to tears, trying but failing to levitate a pear from the kitchen table. And then he had gently taken his hand and taught him how to clear his mind, how to let go of his worries, how to focus…_

Every swipe, every thrust, every parry he attempted was laughable, and he knew it. Even the Thracian seemed to falter, unsure how to carry on when his opponent appeared no more skilled than an infant. The crowd was shouting something obscene – this wasn’t the match they had come to see, and the man underneath the helmet was not the Valerius they knew and loved. They were right.

It was as if everything in his head had turned to dust, engulfed by a chaotic flood of old memories he never knew he possessed. It overwhelmed his instincts and common sense, reducing him to a confused shell of a man torn between two vastly different realities. He tried, he honestly tried, to come back to himself, to become Valerius again, the indomitable gladiator whose skill with the sword was gifted by the gods themselves. But he couldn’t focus, nothing was in focus and everything was a blur, and the next thing he knew he was lying face down on the ground, blood pooling at his side.

The _munerarius_ called to the Thracian to stop, and he did. The crowd was absolutely livid now, and it was only when the young Emperor himself stood up that they quietened down. His robes were a deep, rich shade of purple, and his red hair caught the sunlight as he spoke.

“So _this_ is the famed gladiator who cannot be killed?”

_He had said the same thing when they had first met all those millennia ago. “So_ this _is the Master of the Knights of Ren?” Their early years together had been filled with petty arguments and undisguised scorn, but then gradually, without them realising, their relationship had morphed and changed, until they found themselves carrying out late-night visits to each other’s quarters, sneaking kisses in the ‘freshers and in between meetings…_

He knew he would never make it back out alive. The crowd was screaming for his death, and the Emperor – a man he once knew, intimately, a lifetime ago – would hardly pardon a gladiator who suddenly forgot how to properly wield a sword. No, he would not be granted life. That had been his fate from the very beginning.

He lifted the battered helmet from his head and let it fall to the ground with a heavy thud, such that everyone now had a clear view of his thick black hair and the pale red birthmark that cleaved his face in two. If the Emperor recognised his face, he didn’t show it. If anything, he simply looked unimaginably bored.

The Thracian raised his sword, and the man once known to the public as the gladiator Valerius – the man who had once worn another mask a long, long time ago, and who had called himself Kylo Ren – dropped to his knees in defeat on the Colosseum floor.

_Nobody had expected the Resistance attack to come so swiftly. The ship was under siege and he was in the hangar, fighting off scores of persistent rebels who simply dived right in, shooting at everything in sight. Blaster bolts hung frozen in mid-air, and all seemed to be going well until he let his guard down and someone screamed behind him, crumpling to the floor. In an instant, the frozen bolts unleashed themselves upon troopers and rebels alike as he threw himself down beside the fallen man, cradling his head and trying to smooth his hair back into its usual neat coiffure. His words came out as a shout and as a whisper, all of it lost in the noise of the battle, and then he felt the other man slip away and suddenly he was a child again, adrift in an unfamiliar sea with no one to guide him back home._

Two thoughts crossed his mind before the blade of the Thracian hit home.

The first was, _I deserve this._

The second was, _I always knew you’d become Emperor one day._

* * *

**New York City, 1889**

They met each other again in the late 19th century, in a glitzy ballroom in downtown New York. 

In a lonesome corner of the ridiculously large and gaudy room, a tall man with a birthmark across his face lounged against the wall, fiddling with an unlit cigarette. The man’s name was Ben, because sometimes the universe could be cruel like that. He wouldn’t have been there if he had a choice, but it was his cousin Rae’s debutante ball and everyone from his aunt to his octogenarian grandmother had forced him to put on his best suit and come. So far, he had already politely declined seven dances (citing a “poor ankle”), and his sole companion was the tasteful pot of fresh geraniums sitting on the gilded little table next to him.

Rae had on a smart little hat and a polonaise of black velvet, which was a scandalous sort of colour to wear at such events, but she had done it anyway despite the indignant protests of everyone else in the family. Ben secretly admired the daring way she asserted her independence – that was a trait from the past that hadn’t changed at all.

_It always made him feel odd to interact with her so casually, to laugh with her and trade stories about particularly annoying relatives. They had tried to kill each other many times before, burning with rage and righteous fury, the searing heat of their lightsabers leaving crimson marks on their skin. At the time, he had been convinced that their enmity would continue even in death. He was wrong._

Rae was standing in the centre of the ballroom, surrounded by a gaggle of well-dressed people in immaculate suits and flowing silk dresses with far too many ruffles than necessary. They were all laughing and speaking in excited, eager tones, and Ben smiled at the sight despite himself. She had always been good at making friends, a skill he had never quite managed to grasp in any of his lives. 

She caught him staring and quickly excused herself to go and join him. None of her new friends deigned to follow her over. Not that Ben had expected them to, or even wanted them to.

“Hello Ben,” she said, coming to stand against the wall next to him. “Having fun?”

“No,” he replied sourly. “You know I don’t want to be here.”

“Well, as my one and only cousin, it’s only proper for you to at least _show_ your face here. People will talk if you don’t.”

“Oh, let them talk,” Ben grumbled. “It’s not like they have anything better to do.”

Rae’s lips quirked into a wry smile at that. Her cousin may have been the friendless family embarrassment, but he could be amusing sometimes. She gently put her hands on his shoulders in a well-meaning gesture and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Do you know what your problem is?” She asked, voice dripping with a mocking sort of sarcasm.

“What.”

“It’s that you simply don’t know how to handle people.”

“It’s actually a lot less complicated than that,” Ben quipped back immediately. “I just don’t like people.”

She dropped her hands back down in exasperation and gave a long-suffering groan.

“Look Ben, you’re already here, so you might as well make the most of it. Go out there and dance with someone, or at the very least _talk_ to somebody.”

“I’m already talking to you, isn’t that enough?”

If the pair of them were not currently standing amongst some of the most powerful people in New York City, Rae would have smacked him. But they were, so all she did was give him a withering look that managed to convey both absolute disgust as well as immense pity at the same time. She was good at doing that, and it only took a minute before Ben finally relented and skulked away to the balcony, muttering something about needing fresh air.

The balcony was crowded with impressive floral displays – vivid carnations and sweet-smelling chrysanthemums occupied every available inch of the little area – but, thankfully, only one other person was there when he arrived, and he breathed a sigh of relief. The person had his back to him and was leaning against the marble balustrade, so Ben made it a point to stand far away from him at the other end of it. He didn’t want some stranger to sidle up to him and start a conversation, and he hoped he made that fact perfectly clear with his body language.

Apparently he failed to do so, because after a little while a smooth and pleasantly-accented voice piped up next to him and said, “Nice night, isn’t it?”

If it had been any other question, any other _voice_ in fact, Ben would have politely told them to go and bother some other miserable wallflower instead of him. But the thing was that _he knew this voice_ , could recognise its distinctive cadence and every subtle inflection even with his eyes closed. He knew because he thought of it every single night, playing back those stern admonitions and careless words of affection in his mind because his bed felt somehow empty without them. He knew because in another life, it was the first thing he heard when he woke up and the last thing to cross his mind before he fell asleep.

And he knew, even before he turned to see the face of the speaker, that he would recognise those deep, piercing eyes anywhere.

_Being the General of the First Order came with its perks. Hux had the luxury of having a gigantic floor-to-ceiling viewport in his quarters, and during their first night together, they had sat on the bed and stared out at the stars for what seemed like the longest time. They were cold and naked, covered only by the messy sheets tangled about their legs, but still riding out the last dregs of a post-coital high. “Nice night, isn’t it?” the General had commented. The only answer he’d got was a muffled noise of assent, murmured lazily against his cheek._

Ben wanted to reach out, to touch that face and run his fingers over those soft lips he remembered only too well, to card his hands through that fiery head of hair and just tug it – but gently, so the other man didn’t get hurt. It took all his willpower not to give in to those desires, because then the spell might be broken and he would find himself kissing an illusion, a ghost formed out of thin air and the heady perfume of hundreds of flowers.

“Yes, it is a nice night,” he heard himself answer through the haze in his mind. “Very, very nice.”

Ben’s decidedly odd response seemed to amuse the other man, who smiled and held out a glacé gloved hand for a handshake.

“Brennan Huxley. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

His grip was just as firm and confident as Ben remembered, and all he could think during the brief moment their hands touched was _ohgodhesrealhesreallyreal_. He hastily mumbled out his own name when he caught Hux – no, Hux _ley_ – staring at him expectantly. And then, before he knew what he was doing, he added, “Have we met before?”

It was pointless of him to hope that Hux – Huxley, _damn it_ – would still know who he was, would still recognise him even now. After all, Rae didn’t seem to recall a thing, and even back when they had seen each other in Rome, the other man had regarded him with nothing but condescension. Ben didn’t know why it was only him who retained those memories of a life lived a long, long time ago. In all his twenty-odd years, he had given the thing much thought, but the only conclusion he could come to was that the universe was sadistic and enjoyed watching him suffer. After all, it had given him the name ‘Ben’ again.

Huxley squinted at him in concentration _(he knew that face, Hux made it whenever he scrutinised the ship’s repair bills_ ), but finally he said, with a twinge of regret, “No, I don’t think we have. This is my first time in New York after all.”

He had on a dark, expensive-looking peacoat with polished jet buttons, and his ginger hair was slicked back into its usual neat style. If Ben didn’t know better, he would have thought that they were back on some planet in that other galaxy far, far away, conducting one of their many diplomatic visits in order to secure a political alliance. But Ben did know better, and it hurt him to remember that those days were long gone, and that now they were simply two strangers on a balcony, illuminated by the twinkling night lights of New York City.

Yet, even so, perhaps things were not all _that_ bad. After all, they had, despite everything, managed to meet once again, and this time as equals. Maybe, just maybe, Ben could make this work. And he wanted desperately to make it work. He’d been given a second chance, and he’d be _damned_ if he was going to waste it.

“You’ve never been here before?” He asked, in what he hoped was a friendly tone of voice. He’d never been very good at small talk – Rae always told him that he looked immeasurably bored (and slightly murderous) whenever he was pushed to entertain the many distant uncles and nosy aunts that came to visit. Ben was forced to agree with her on that. 

Fortunately, Huxley didn’t seem put off by anything, or if he was, he was too polite to let it show on his face. He had always been very good at doing that sort of thing.

“No, I really haven’t,” he replied, sounding a little sad about it. “Been stuck on the other side of the pond my whole life, in fact. You wouldn’t believe how dreadful that can be.”

There wasn’t much that Ben could say to that, so he just nodded and said “Oh.”

“But eventually my bosses at the law firm got tired of seeing me around the office all the time, because they all but forced me to take a break and go on holiday.” He chuckled quietly to himself, and Ben’s heart lurched. “People have always told me I can be somewhat of a workaholic.”

_The lights in the General’s quarters were at a dim five percent, but Hux continued to tap away fervently at his datapad. In the darkness, the datapad’s light was almost blinding, but Hux didn’t seem to mind. Next to him, a tired voice whined, “It’s late, go to sleep.” He told it to shut up, because he had a lot more work to do, and why should he wait to do it the next day when he could do it right now? Then a hand snaked out and pulled him under their large shared blanket, and Hux suddenly stopped talking, silenced by the gentle press of lips against his mouth. “You damn workaholic…”_

“Is that so…” Ben breathed. “I never would have guessed.”

“Yes, well, that’s how it is. Although I must say, even though I’ve already been here a week, I still don’t quite know my way around. It’s very easy to get lost in all the charm and the glamour.” He shot Ben an apologetic smile. “I actually don’t even know whose party I’m at.”

“It’s my cousin’s,” Ben replied, a little too quickly. “It’s her debutante ball, although she’s always been pretty well-known around here so I don’t really see why we still need to throw her one. But our family places great importance on tradition – too much importance, if you ask me – so they did it anyway and forced me to come. A fact which I resent quite a bit. Not that I hate my cousin, of course, but there is only so much human interaction I can stomach in a night before I –” He abruptly cut himself off when he caught Huxley staring at him curiously. “I’m sorry, I was rambling.”

“No, no, that’s perfectly fine,” said Huxley, with a wave of his hand. “I’m not very good with people either. I guess that’s why we’re both out here instead of back there.”

He gave a contented sigh and sank further down onto the balustrade, watching the world go by below him with a detached kind of interest, as if he were once again an Emperor, tall and proud, watching his subjects bluster about their daily lives.

Ben drank in the image greedily, imprinting it deep into his mind so he’d never forget it, and then he scooted closer to Huxley and said, somewhat awkwardly, “If you want to, I could show you around the city. That is – unless you’ve already got plans.”

Huxley turned to face him, eyes bright as they reflected the hundreds of little lights shining below. To Ben, they looked like the stars themselves – vast and beautiful and absolutely unfathomable.

“I’d love that.”

* * *

_On Naboo, no one knew who they were. During the day, they walked the busy streets and bustling thoroughfares, eyeing charming souvenirs and sampling dishes that burst with flavour. At night, lying together on an unfamiliar bed, they spoke about dreams and ambitions and about each other, until their eyes grew heavy with sleep. They were on a mission for the Order, but the Knight had managed to convince his General to take a short detour. It was good, he said, to take a well-deserved break every now and again. Hux had protested at first, but his lover was an incredibly stubborn man, and so he had relented in the end, finding to his surprise that he was rather enjoying himself. Here on this green planet, they could cast off their titles and their duties and pretend, just for a moment, that they were simply two ordinary men, drunk not on power, but on love for each other._

Ben spent most of the next fortnight out of the house. Rae shot him questioning glances whenever he put on his top hat and morning clothes and rushed into his brougham, because as far as she knew her cousin barely ever left the house unless someone forced him to. She confronted him one night, demanding he spill the beans about the secret person he seemed to be meeting every day, but he clamped his mouth shut and refused to say a word. His slowly reddening face, however, told Rae all she needed to know.

It became somewhat of a habit for him to bring his brougham around to Madison Square every afternoon, where Huxley was currently staying with his relatives. The sight of him waiting at the doorstep, in his well-pressed suit jacket and little bowler hat fitted (adorably) on his head, was enough to make Ben almost forget how to breathe. He was sure that he must have looked like a lovestruck fool every time Huxley climbed into the carriage, blushing so hard that even his ears started to grow warm.

They spent those long carriage rides largely in companionable silence. Sometimes Ben would jabber on about his annoying family and how much he wished to get out of New York, and Huxley would chime in to talk about his own sprawling estate in County Clare, about his younger sisters – ever curious about his love life – and about his job as a partner in one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. Most times, however, they simply sat together in the peaceful quiet of the carriage as it bumped along the cobblestone streets. They were so close their shoulders touched, and everything just felt so right, so _real_ , that Ben could close his eyes and tell himself, “Everything’s okay now. Everything’s alright _._ ” And he would believe it with all his heart.

They took long, leisurely strolls down Fifth Avenue and along Broadway, and Huxley took in the gleaming shopfronts and impressive buildings with rapt fascination. In Central Park, they sat under the blossoming cherry trees and watched the rich elite show off their trotters – solidly-built horses known for their speed – after which they wandered over to the Met to marvel at the rise and fall of once-great civilisations, some of which Ben remembered far too well for his liking. Some days, they extended their outings to include dinner as well, and over broiled shad and Veuve Clicquot, they would talk and laugh as if they had known each other forever. 

Then, at the end of the second week, everything came to an abrupt and painful end.

They were on East 14th Street, standing outside the Academy of Music and waiting for Ben’s brougham to come and pick them up. Throngs of fashionably-dressed people chattered and milled around them, spilling out from the doors of the opulent opera house. The night breeze was cold and windy, mussing up Huxley’s usually well-ordered hair, and Ben absently reached out to tuck it back.

“Thank you,” said Huxley, and Ben couldn’t tell if his face was red from the cold or from self-conscious embarrassment. “You know, I really will miss you when I go back the day after next. Will you be seeing me off?”

Ben’s brain screeched to a halt. He had been so wrapped up in the sheer joy of just _being_ with Hux again – _Huxley_ – the brilliant, brilliant man he had pledged his heart to, millennia ago, and whom he had once had the honour of calling _his_ – that he had forgotten everything else. And now reality crashed down on him like a hailstorm and he felt his ephemeral Eden crumble at his feet. 

A drop of rain hit his face just as the brougham manoeuvred itself over to them, and it only got heavier as they rode back to Madison Square. It clattered loudly against the hood of the carriage, such that Ben could barely hear himself talk, could barely hear himself think. But he knew he must have said something – probably “Yes, of course I will. What kind of friend do you take me for?” – because Huxley was nodding at him and rattling off his departure time from the Grand Central Depot. And then before he knew it, they had reached Huxley’s place and he was already climbing out, and Ben was only just starting to wave goodbye when the brougham jerked to a start again and sped down the road back to his house.

The next day, Ben met Huxley for lunch again, but left immediately after that, claiming that the latter ought to go home and pack so he wouldn’t need to rush later on.  

When they met again at the station, Ben had managed to school his expression into one of perfect neutrality, although he couldn’t hide the slight puffiness around his eyes. Huxley’s gaze flickered to them once or twice, but he was nice enough not to mention anything.

“I’ll write back to you,” he was saying, as Ben looked everywhere – at the hands of the clock ticking slowly on, at the bits of dirt caught on the train windows, at the couples embracing by the platform’s edge – everywhere but at Huxley. He knew he would end up doing something regrettable if he looked into those eyes again. “Or you can come and visit me. I can introduce you to my sisters and my fiancée.”

_Oh_. Well, that settled it then.

Kylo Ren wouldn’t have let such a minor setback get to him. Kylo Ren would have chased him all the way to County Clare, would have continued to court and woo him relentlessly anyway, day after day, until he finally said yes. Kylo Ren would not have let him go.

But Ben was not Kylo Ren, not anymore, and Huxley was not General Hux, the feared commander of the First Order. They led different lives now, had different priorities and different interests. And as much as Ben felt the tug of his old life surge within him and tempt him to _just reach out, just hold him and keep him with you_ , he quashed it back down with a vengeance. He knew all about the rash pursuit of his own selfish interests, knew it all too well because it haunted his dreams every night, and he knew that he didn’t want to go down that path again.

So he steeled himself as he said his final goodbyes, doing an admirable job of not breaking down even though his entire body felt like it was being held up by nothing but a flimsy, wobbly scaffold that threatened to give way at any moment. Huxley sounded genuinely sad about having to leave, but an ear-splitting whistle suddenly cut through the noise and then he was gone from the platform.

_He was crying, letting out undignified wails that lasted all through the rest of the week. He had called out to the_ Falcon _as it pulled away and reached out his tiny hands to it, as if he could somehow make it come back through sheer determination, but it had refused to listen to him and disappeared into the sky. His uncle did his best to console him, as did the other young apprentices there with him, but he didn’t hear them and remained numb to their words._

Ben watched the train pull away from the station, belching out a cloud of pungent smoke, then he turned around and walked away. _After all_ , he tried to tell himself. _There’s always the next life_. 

* * *

**Dublin, 1999**

At the turn of the 21st century, in a stuffy old pub in the heart of Dublin, they found each other again.

It was all Poe’s idea, really. Poe was the kind of guy that everybody fell for – hair perfectly tousled, eyes so dark they pulled you right in and never let go – and when he turned on the charm and flashed _that_ smile, no one, not even Ben, could say no to him. So when he had suggested they take a year off after college to backpack around Europe (“Come on, buddy, it’ll be _fun_!”), Ben couldn’t find it in himself to refuse him.

_As a child, he had always looked up to Poe. He was so brave, so daring, so full of life. Whenever he sat with his mother in her A-wing and took to the skies, the younger boy would look up at him with wonder in his eyes and beg his own mother to let him fly too. Most of the time, she would say no, but sometimes, when he was lucky, his father would hear him, and he would sneak him aboard the_ Falcon _to sit with him in the cockpit as they flew circles around the base._

In this life, Poe was his neighbour and childhood friend, and for some reason he was still named Poe. Ben was also still called Ben, and at this point he was utterly convinced that the universe hated his guts and enjoyed fucking with him just for the hell of it.

In fact, it was probably fucking with him right now, because he was currently lost in the middle of Dublin with nothing but a duffel bag and the clothes sticking to his back. His phone was dead, and the sole map he carried with him had had a significant chunk chewed off of it by Poe’s dog a couple of months ago. The pair of them had arranged to meet each other outside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, but one or both of them had got the address wrong and now Ben found himself standing outside a lonely military cemetery with no one else around him.

In all the time he hovered awkwardly by the side of the road, not a single car or pedestrian passed him by, and he started to get a little worried. The sky was getting dark, and if he didn’t find a place to stay the night soon, he’d end up dozing on a park bench somewhere and getting mugged in his sleep. With a long sigh, Ben stepped into the cemetery, hoping to find someone there who could help him out.

It didn’t take him long to realise that he was the only living being walking amongst the rows and rows of white slabs. The cemetery was still and silent, disturbed only by the sound of his boots crunching wetly on the damp soil. The few birds he passed stared at him with bright, beady eyes before flying away.

_Well, that was a colossal waste of time_ , he thought bitterly, and he was just about to turn around and leave the damn place when one particular headstone caught his eye. Unlike most of the other ones, which were made of solid white granite, this one was pure black. In gold lettering, under a simple design of a cross, it read, “In loving memory of General B. Hux”.

_The funeral had been a small, modest affair, attended only by a handful of the more senior officers, and it was concluded within a single afternoon. He knew Hux wouldn’t have wanted it any other way – it was best to get it over with as quickly as possible, or else the Order would suffer a severe dip in morale. Phasma, who kept a stoic demeanour throughout the whole thing, took over his position, and the_ Finalizer _was speedily repaired. Still, it took everyone a long while to get used to the odd, suffocating silence that pervaded the ship in the months that followed._

Maybe it wasn’t him at all. Maybe it was just some other person who happened to have a very similar name and position. Yet despite everything, Ben still found himself dropping heavily to the ground, tracing his fingers gently over the name on the stone, and he knew from the way his heart tore itself apart that this was the man he had once loved. The man he, in fact, _still_ loved, even though he knew he ought to move on. After all, Finn, Rey, and Poe had managed to do it. So why couldn’t he?

He rested his forehead on the top of the slab, dully wondering if he _should_ have chased him to Ireland all those years ago when he had the chance. Or perhaps, long before that, he should have run up the Colosseum steps, his match be damned, and kissed his Emperor in front of all of Rome.

_“Careful, Ren…”_

He should have been more careful, that fateful day in the hangar.

* * *

When Ben eventually managed to drag himself away from the grave and out of the cemetery, his legs were stiff and caked with mud and his head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. The sun had completely set by now, and he stumbled down the dark streets in a daze, hoping to find a vaguely-habitable place to spend the night. His search took him down narrow roads and grimy old buildings until finally, after what seemed like forever, he chanced upon a pub and threw himself in.

Given that it was a Friday night, he would have expected it to be a little more crowded, but other than the bartender wiping cups behind the counter, an old man hunched in a corner with a newspaper, and a woman in a voluminous red skirt scribbling away in a notebook, the place was completely empty. A round orange cat dozed by the windowsill, while faint sodium-yellow lights flickered overhead. It felt rather chilly too, and he guessed that the heater must have been broken.

Ben could have chosen any of the empty wooden tables dotted around the stuffy pub, but he made a beeline to one of the barstools, dumped his heavy bag on the floor next to him, and ordered something strong. He heard someone – probably the bartender – give an irritated huff about the mud he had tracked into the pub, but he found that he didn’t really care about that, not right now, because he was lost and alone and he’d just found out that his lover had been dead for the past twenty over years. He was having a pretty shitty evening.

The bartender slid a mug over to him, but with such force and undisguised annoyance that most of it spilled onto the countertop and onto his shirt. He stared at the mess, barely registering the liquid seeping through his clothes, then he shrugged and downed the rest of the drink in one long gulp. Then he ordered another one, because _ah, what the hell_ , he’d deal with the consequences of everything tomorrow. Right now, the only thing on his mind was his need to drink away all of his troubles. And even if the pub he happened to end up in was the worst one in all of Ireland, he was determined to get himself completely and utterly smashed by the end of the night.

So he sat there for a very long time, ordering pint after pint and drowning in self-pity, until he was the only customer left in the pub. Even the cat had long since disappeared, and it was now well into the night. Ben’s head was resting on the countertop, nestled among an unhealthy number of empty mugs, when there was a loud _bang_ and he felt the counter tremble beneath him. The bartender, who had slammed his hand down dangerously close to Ben’s face, was glaring daggers at him.

“Pay up,” he demanded.

Ben blinked up at him blearily. “No.”

“We’re _closing_ ,” the bartender continued savagely. “Pay up and get the fuck out.”

“How about _you_ get the fuck out?” Ben slurred back drunkenly.

Ben was too far gone to properly focus on the bartender’s face, so all he could see was a somewhat ginger-coloured blur moving around in front of him. Then it disappeared from behind the counter, and the next thing he knew, someone was grabbing him from behind and hauling him backwards towards the door.

“Whoa, hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He tried to wriggle out of the bartender’s grasp, but his limbs refused to cooperate and he succeeded only in tripping over his feet, falling backwards, and whacking the other man full in the face.

“I am evicting you from the premises.” His words sounded clipped and forced, as if he was struggling to maintain his composure when he really just wanted to yell out a string of obscenities.

“What, so you’re just gonna dump me on the curb or something?” Ben continued, almost slipping on the floor as he tried, once again, to get away. He failed. “Is this how you treat all your customers?”

“Nope.” After a lot of struggling, they finally made it to the entrance. The bartender shoved Ben unceremoniously against the heavy wooden door and threw his duffel bag after him. “Just you.”

Ben was just about to give a rude comeback when his throat suddenly seized up and the contents of his stomach – mostly alcohol – decided to spontaneously empty themselves all over the pub’s previously spotless floor. Then his vision grew woozy and the last thing he heard before everything turned black was a very loud, very emphatic, “Oh, you absolute _shithead_.”

* * *

When Ben finally woke up, hours later, he found himself lying on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar place. His throat was dry and he tasted ash in his mouth, and his head felt like it was being stabbed by a hundred little knives at once. Slowly, he tried to sit up, groaning as he did so, and it was only then that he noticed the dark shape sitting next to him at the edge of the bed. Although the lights in the room were off, he could tell that the person was scowling down at him.

_Every inch of his body felt like it was on fire. The med droids had done their best given the limited supplies on the escape shuttle, but every time he tried to move his wounds would send a fresh burst of pain searing through him, and whenever he closed his eyes he saw the scavenger girl standing above him, holding that blue lightsaber aloft like a trophy. He wanted nothing more than to turn the shuttle around and chase after the_ Falcon _, to hunt down the rest of the Resistance, but then Hux had come over to scowl at him and lecture him about his recklessness and lack of common sense, and somehow, it had calmed him down. Hux would know what to do to sort things out. He always did._

“Hux?” Ben asked weakly, still feeling groggy and out of sorts.

“Who the heck is that?” responded the person on the bed, who, through the dim fog in Ben’s mind, was starting to look a lot like Hux.

“I – what happened? Where am I?”

“You threw up on my floor and then promptly passed out,” the stranger answered. He narrowed his eyes at Ben and gave him an annoyed scoff. It was a very familiar-sounding scoff, one that Ben recognised all too well despite his pounding headache. Then the stranger looked him square in the eyes and everything clicked.

“I had to spend another half hour cleaning up the mess, and then I had to haul your sorry ass back to my place and clean _you_ up as well, so thank you very much for ruining my Friday night. You’re lucky I didn’t just leave you by the side of the road. Also, just so you know, I’m kicking you out first thing in the morning.” Then, when Ben didn’t respond, “And why are you smiling like that? It’s creepy. If you’ve recovered enough, you can just leave right now, you twat.”

But all he could do was just smile and smile until his cheeks began to hurt, and then after that all he wanted to do was let out the loudest laugh in his life because he knew, he just knew, that things would finally work out for them this time. They had found their way to each other once again, and this time Ben was determined not to let go no matter what.

“What’s your name?” He asked, unable to keep the giddy excitement from his voice.

“It’s Aodhan,” said Aodhan, who still looked a lot like Hux, except with slightly fluffier hair.

It was at that moment that Ben’s stomach decided to let out an undignified growl, and he remembered that he hadn’t eaten dinner yet, choosing instead to binge on copious amounts of alcohol. Aodhan made a mildly disgusted face, then got up from the bed and reluctantly offered to get him a snack.

“Oh, and can you get me a charger for my phone too?”

Aodhan’s only response to that was an exasperated noise of assent, and it was such a Hux-like reaction that Ben couldn’t stop himself from grinning again.

When he eventually fell back asleep, Ben didn’t dream of anything.

* * *

Aodhan made good on his promise and shooed Ben out of his apartment (which was conveniently located just above the pub) at the crack of dawn, but not before the latter managed to hastily scribble his number in toothpaste on the bathroom mirror. He’d also sent Poe a quick “ _I’m not dead_ ” text in the middle of the night, and when he reached the pub entrance he found the other man waiting for him there.  

Poe’s eyes lit up when he saw him, and he ran over to wrap him in a tight hug.

“Dude, what happened last night? I was waiting and waiting, and then at like 3am you text me to say that you’re staying overnight at some shady pub –”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Ben protested, feeling the need to defend it somehow. “The bartender’s pretty cute.”

Poe gave him a sceptical look. “Really? Because I looked it up and it’s got a ton of bad reviews on TripAdvisor. They say the owner of the place is so bitter, it’s like cheap beer runs through his veins.”

Ben snorted at that, because it was undeniably true.

“Well, never mind all that now. You’re not dead, and that’s all that matters.” Poe gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “We still on for Saint Patrick’s Cathedral?”

“Yeah, lead the way.”

They set off down the narrow street, which was only just beginning to come alive. About five minutes into their journey, Ben’s phone buzzed, and he saw that he had one new text message from an unknown number.

It was a very long, essay-length rant about how ungrateful Ben had been despite everything Aodhan had done for him, how ruining the pub floor apparently wasn’t enough for him because he just _had_ to fuck up the upstairs bathroom as well, and how, after all that, he hadn’t even paid the man a single damn cent for all the beer he’d chugged.

Ben scrolled through the message several more times before smirking and pocketing his phone. He had a feeling that he would be patronising Aodhan’s pub again very soon.

* * *

**Montana, the Future**

It was a warm day.

Outside on the bleachers, two teenagers sat side by side, a pizza box open between them. The taller one, who had a birthmark across his face and dark hair tied into a messy bun, was holding a bottle of fizzy lemonade, while the other was hunched over, using his shirt to clean his glasses. His ginger hair flopped forward to cover his face, leaving the back of his neck exposed. The taller one gave it a quick glance before leaning over and pressing the bottle of lemonade against it.

The ginger one yelped at the sudden coldness and threw the other one a dirty look.

“What was that for?”

“You’re sweating,” the brunette answered simply. “I thought you’d appreciate the cold.”

“I don’t – I mean it’s –” He floundered a little before giving up. “Ugh, fine, I guess I do.”

He settled back into the touch, albeit a little reluctantly, and the taller one instinctively brought his free hand forward to wrap it around the other man’s waist. The redhead scoffed, but didn’t resist. He secretly enjoyed it, after all, and his partner _knew_ he secretly enjoyed it, but neither of them was willing to actually voice it out. It was enough just to stay like that, curled about each other in the quiet solitude of the empty school field where no one would come to bother them. In fact, for the taller one, it was more than enough.

He let go for a brief second to rummage in his pocket, producing a battered little plastic tiara and placing it reverently on his partner’s head. His hand rested there for a long time before returning to the other man’s side.  

“Okay, _now_ what are you doing?”

“We’re celebrating, remember? This right now is your coronation, and this is your crown.”

“It looks like it came out of a cereal box. And I was only made President of the _Debate Club_ , I don’t need a damn crown.”

“It suits you though. You deserve to wear it.”

There was genuine sincerity in the way he said it, along with something else – an odd twinge of maturity, as if he knew more, had seen more, than he cared to let on. The ginger was just about to point it out when he felt his partner press a kiss to the top of his head, just next to where the tiara was situated. He flushed with embarrassment and melted deeper into the embrace – he was weak to such gestures of affection, which always made the other man all the more eager to do them to him.

“Alright, alright,” he said, turning his face to nuzzle against the taller one’s neck. “One day I’ll become Emperor of the World and wear a proper crown for you, okay? But it won’t be so fast – I need to graduate first.”

The other man smiled down at him indulgently, recalling other careless promises made in other lives. He dipped down his head a little further and gently touched his lips to his partner’s forehead. 

“Of course,” he murmured, his voice soft and sure and entirely unafraid. “We have all the time in the world.”

_End._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm on Tumblr too --> iambnotwhatiamb.tumblr.com


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